It was Tuesday. It was raining, it was always raining. The damp air clung to the walls, dripping, warping the Robins egg blue. A man who had jowls and sticky white hair matted on his scalp was yelling at me. 

“Well you know I come every day, why couldn’t you save me one?”

“Sir, I'm sorry but it's first come first serve.”

I could feel the spit hit my face. Propelled by his angry words. A dusting of wet, miniscule, droplets that held more power than they ever had before. This was before they had inserted the Plexiglass divider and mandated masks. My cheek ticked. I wanted to cry. I could feel it building up inside me. I always wanted to cry when I was angry. I could feel the way my eyes began to ache, attempting to resist the tears. The desire to spit in his face hit me. It was a Tuesday and it was raining. And for the fourth day in a row, someone was screaming at me because we ran out of maple bars. 

I repeated myself, hate repeating myself. They always think I'll change my mind. Suddenly, magically even, solve a problem that is not my fault and is out of my hands. I gave him the spiel on the national yeast shortage (no idea if that was true) and told him we were understaffed in the bakery (probably true). He didn't hear me. Even if he did, he didn't care. It fucks my brain to think I get yelled at by white people about vegan donuts in exchange for survival. I felt my eyes going out of focus. The rain felt louder all of the sudden. I felt myself tuning out the man in front of me, focusing on the water hitting the glass. The rain pounding incessantly, it seemed so angry, I wanted to stand in it, feel it on my face, let it wash away the spit and the frustration. I wonder how I got stuck here? I feel as if my feet are one with the floor. I try to break away but there's no way out, no clear direction to run. It's dark out there, in the unknown. I was never good at uncertainty, but now, all I know is I hate this particular known that I have found myself in. Found me in…. Funny. I created it. I walked the path to here. I took a pit stop. I paused. And I froze. I couldn’t go on. I fell into the trap of wanting certainty and now I stand here, getting spit on by a man.

I don't think I made this decision. I felt possessed. It went against everything I ever knew about serving people. I spit in his stupid, sweaty, mother fucking face. In fact, I hacked a loogie on his horrible disgusting face. And then I smiled.

I don't know who I was at that moment. At all. Maybe it was my true self. Probably not though. But it boiled up. It fucking boiled up. I felt it in my bones that it was the only thing I could do at that moment. I couldn’t apologize to a man who came at closing, for the fact we were closing. I couldn't make an excuse for the sake of politeness, I had already made them. I couldn’t apologize for something that was his fault. 

It felt good. Like running in the rain or when you manage to get multiple orgasms in a row. It's blissful. Peaceful. A deep clarity is born in your stomach and seeps through the abdomen, into your fingers and toes. 

It began to unravel. My life. My anger too. 

“You're fired.”

I never expected I'd hear those words. So cold. So painfully final. A bucket of ice water. I was out, standing in fucking rain and I was terrified. It wasn't washing away anything. It was leaving a chill. Pricking my skin. Suddenly everything I hated was all I ever wanted. The security. The soul-crushingly predictable way I knew I'd go to work and I’d make money and be able to pay my bills. 

I wanted to cry again. In fact, I'm sure I did. I felt myself become unglued from the floor. It opened up below me and I went tumbling in. I no longer was standing still, I was falling. Begging someone to catch me, screaming for a little help. 

But there was no cushion, there was no backup. I had no jobs lined up. I had no one to fall back on. Rent, food, life was due, and I was empty-handed. When I hit the bottom, the cold hard bottom that was reality, I landed with a “smack”.

I felt myself jerk awake. My whole body shivered. I was still standing in front of the man who spit and who’s pale, dry, jowls shook at an almost melodic cadence. 

I had not spit back. I had resisted. It was all in my head. The rebellious me, the me who is unafraid of conflict and the unknown. Instead, I swallowed back the spit and the desire to cry, and I smiled. Then, I gave him a punch card for a free donut. 

“Next time, it's on us! I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

He grumbled away. Achingly slow in his walk, for a second I wondered if being that old made him angry or if he had always been that way?

 I could see the other customers staring at me. Some in annoyance, angry in the fact that their schedule had been disrupted due to an extra-long wait. Impatiently tapping their foot waiting for me to address them. Others looked at me in sympathy, eyes that seemed to say “ugh, so sorry you had to deal with that… can I have a latte?”. Some just looked at their phones, removing themselves from the situation entirely. 

Turning to my coworker, I could feel the pain in my eyes spreading, my head began to thump painfully, while my throat burned. With a scratchy voice, I murmured to Kevin, “I’m gonna run to the bathroom real quick.”

I escaped to the employee bathroom in the back of the building, its size comparable to a closet. Standing inside, surrounded by four gray walls, no windows, and a scratched mirror. I placed my dry and cracked hands from overwashing on the sink. 

“Deep breaths, deep breaths” I repeated to myself. Trying to suppress the ache.

I felt my heart rate pick up when I thought of his horrible spitting mouth. I worried about my health if the mask I wore would protect me enough from his maskless anger. I tried to slow the beat, but the loud rushing in my ears, the aching eyes, the burning in my chest, the absolute fear of catching an illness I barely understood at the time. 

I breathed and I breathed and then I cried. Big sticky tears dripped down my cheeks, the top of my mask dampening with my anger. I cried because I couldn't yell back and I cried because if I did I would be fucked. 

But mostly, I cried because of the humiliation that comes with service work like this. The silence that is expected of you. The way you must bend and fold and obey, to keep your job. It's robotic, soul-sucking. It gives you aches and pains and melts you down until you no longer have a voice. You no longer care enough to have a voice. You clock in, you clock out. You patiently wait for two weeks until it's payday and you relax. For a day. A minute. If you're lucky a few days. When your bills have been paid and your fridge is full. Until the money's gone. And then you tighten up. And you shove down your feelings and give in to the monotonous work. You forget you're a person, you say good morning and pretend to care about a stranger' day who doesn't care about you. You chat and chat and receive no tip. You tighten up. Twist yourself into a person who pleases everyone, a person who customers feel is worthy of their money, of their stingy appreciation. 

When the tears had been wrangled, pulled under control. The deep breathing had finally done its job, I tightened up and made my way back to the front. I folded in on myself and stepped into the person I was paid to be.

“Good morning! What can I get you?”